At the start of this week I attended a mentoring-debrief over at Business Link by London Bridge. This provided me with a great opportunity to reflect on the journey of the last 6 months, which is formally coming to a close on Thursday evening (which means this is my last blog!)
At the start of the relationship I had set some goals for the 6 months and I am pleased to report that I hit a sum total of '0' of them. In the spirit of Eurovision this weekend, "nul pointes for Ms Shenton".
So, I'm not sure I will be in the top contenders to win the 'mentoring competition', but I don't mind.
When asked on Monday about what I thought I had got from the mentoring process I broke it down into two parts. The first I described as 'technical business knowledge' (hiring, funding, sales process etc) which has obviously proved really valuable. The second, which I have commented on througout my blogs, was the personal development side of things.
In terms of the latter, I spend a lot of time talking to young people about 2 core concepts - expanding what 'you don't know you don't know' and 'closing the gap' between where you want to be/ achieve and where you are now - and working with Caroline, especially in the last few months, has been a structure to help me develop in both of these areas.
If I am ever asked to mentor I will try to approach it in a similar way of looking at both the 'nuts and bolts' of business, as well as the internal 'person dynamics' part. After all, the growth of our business is completely dictated by the speed at which we learn, develop and adapt both ourselves and our knowledge.
One final note, thank you to the people who have slightly unnerved me over the last few weeks by telling me that they have read my blog. I never expected anyone other than Jackie - the great lady behind the competition - to actually read anything I wrote.
This has been a tremendous opportunity and would really like to thank Jackie for all her efforts - including chasing me to post my blog! - as I think this is one of those things that I might look back on in a few years as a key point in the development of AE and ES.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Mining a rich seam...
About ten years ago I visited a silver mine in Bolivia, a place of vast natural deposits that almost single-handedly funded the Spanish Empire at the height of its power. 400 years on and the miners are working exhausted seams, living in povety and dying at the average age of 36 from a combination of respiratory problems, liver damage (96% proof alcohol anyone?) and coca- addiction.
"Fascinating, Emily", you might say (but probably won't) , "but how does this relate your mentoring relationship with Caroline?" When I wrote my last blog I was about to see Caroline and I went armed with a long-list of things I wanted her advice on and with hindsight I wish I had taken that approach right from the start. Like that silver mine 400 years ago there is simply so much of value that I haven't yet tapped in to.
Our last conversation swung from recruitment, to equity partnerships, from really understanding the profitability of the business (with one fell-swoop of a pen and napkin my business went from being pretty to pretty ugly) to working with the government and then, finally, thoughts on how to structure the business. As a result my bank holiday weekend consists of arranging a meeting with an accountant friend to move us from a cash accounting system to a projects based system; writing up job descriptions and writing an initial template for recruitment. I will also be producing a weekly template to keep track of all our deliverables across the business and producing targets for all areas. Sounds terrible I know, but I am actually (sadly) quite excited as I can see the difference this will all make to our growth.
Fortunately, Caroline has already offered to keep meeting over the summer and I am hoping that before we end working together formally in the Autumn I can mine the untapped riches of information/ experience to power the expansion of the Arrival Education empire - without resorting to alcohol, coca-addiction or the Inquisition.
"Fascinating, Emily", you might say (but probably won't) , "but how does this relate your mentoring relationship with Caroline?" When I wrote my last blog I was about to see Caroline and I went armed with a long-list of things I wanted her advice on and with hindsight I wish I had taken that approach right from the start. Like that silver mine 400 years ago there is simply so much of value that I haven't yet tapped in to.
Our last conversation swung from recruitment, to equity partnerships, from really understanding the profitability of the business (with one fell-swoop of a pen and napkin my business went from being pretty to pretty ugly) to working with the government and then, finally, thoughts on how to structure the business. As a result my bank holiday weekend consists of arranging a meeting with an accountant friend to move us from a cash accounting system to a projects based system; writing up job descriptions and writing an initial template for recruitment. I will also be producing a weekly template to keep track of all our deliverables across the business and producing targets for all areas. Sounds terrible I know, but I am actually (sadly) quite excited as I can see the difference this will all make to our growth.
Fortunately, Caroline has already offered to keep meeting over the summer and I am hoping that before we end working together formally in the Autumn I can mine the untapped riches of information/ experience to power the expansion of the Arrival Education empire - without resorting to alcohol, coca-addiction or the Inquisition.
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